The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches

Basho is best known as Japan’s most influential haikuist, but this book is a reminder that he is also one of the great early travel writers.

The haiku-punctuated accounts of Basho’s travels offer evocative glimpses of life and spirituality in 17th-century Japan. Through Basho’s interest in documenting the natural world, we can also start to understand the lasting importance of nature in Japanese culture. 

I’ve always been a sucker for haiku. No one did it better than Matsuo Bashō, and none of his anthologies were better written than this book. Ten years ago, I went to Japan to experience his poem-pillow places.

The result was my own travelogue, Samurai Road, a vision quest perhaps not quite as spiritual or erudite as that of the master but no less inspired. Days and months are travelers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. 

Basho tells of a long journey he takes across Japan with a friend of his, and they write poetry along the way.

The poetry is included in the memoir. Basho writes completely without judgment, accepting everything he experiences exactly as it is. It is a book that show us how to try to find openness, naturalness, goodness, and (really) the fundamental perfection of everything.